Posts Tagged ‘bhagavatam’

I question the presumption that there is anything wrong with the world, or any need to save it from anything. I borrow that idea from a fellow named Jesus, who is translated to have said: “I come not to judge the world, but to bring forgiveness to the world.” I am paraphrasing actually, but the verbatim saying is “not to judge the world, but to take away the sin of the world.”

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus' description of himself "I am the Good Shepherd" (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: "To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In churches, I was taught that Jesus takes away the sinsof the world. He said sin, though, not sins (at least that is how it is translated in the actual printed Bibles even if multitudes of Christians misquote the translation written on the pages of their Bibles). Also, Jesus was not talking about sin the way that others were- like the pharisees who wished to stone a woman to death who was accused of being a criminal (prostitution was a capital crime) and so on.

Jesus did not judge her or even direct her to “do penance” to compensate and earn her way back to heaven. He simply did not accuse her and invited her accusers to repent, which they did. He took away the accusation of the world. He saved the world from… accusations!

Jesus also did not direct her accusers to do penance either. He had no judgment against them from the beginning. He just said things like “well, alas, they do not even know what they are doing” and “remove the barrier from your own sight, not from the sight of another.”

Sin is not just partly “in the eye of the beholder.” Sin is a way of looking. Sin is ONLY in the eye of the beholder. Looking out and seeing sin, that is sin. (Looking in and seeing sin is guilt, but heaven is the way of being in which there is simply no blame, no accusation, no judgment against evil or for good, no need to forgive for there is no condemnation.)

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I invite you to consider a distinction to which I was introduced by Jiddu Krishnamurti: religion itself is not the problem. Religions, however- or at least certain human operations that go by the names of religions- sometimes seem to have a distinct absence of religion in their religions.